The Encounters podcast I listened to was “Episode Eighteen: The One about the Bell Witch”. The interviewers are Ellie Hasken and Jesse Fivecoate. The person being interviewed is Brandon Barker, a member of the IU folklore faculty. The supernatural creature mentioned in the podcast is the Bell Witch from Adams, Tennessee. Brandon Barker is from the nearby area in Tennessee and grew up hearing about the Bell Witch. The Bell Witch was an invisible entity that affected the Bell family in 1817 that tormented some of the family members and is blamed with the murder of John Bell. Now, Adams still has many local connections to the Bell Witch such as legend tripping and Bloody Mary-like rituals to summon her. The community also uses the phenomenon …show more content…
The Bell family did not call her a witch and it was the newspapers that named her the Bell Witch. Something interesting to me about the Bell Witch was despite being blamed for murdering John Bell, she wasn’t completely malicious. There are many accounts of her being kind to Lucy Bell by giving her fruit when she was sick or mischievous to Andrew Jackson by getting his wagon wheels stuck. This is interesting to me because most of the time with supernatural entities and monsters it is very black and white whether they are good or evil or there is an explanation as to why they are doing what they are doing. They mentioned that the Bell Witch despised John and Betsy Bell and eventually poisoned John Bell but they did not offer any reasoning as to why she hated them. They also didn’t explain how she poisoned John …show more content…
The closest thing they describe the Bell Witch as is an “invisible entity” and they mostly refer to the Bell Witch as Kate or simply “her”. There is a mention of hybridity when the family encounters animals that they can’t identify that are best described as half-dog half cat or half-dog half man. She also kills humans as she poisoned John Bell and can hurt them like when she would pull Lucy Bell’s hair. The Bell Witch also displays invulnerability by being able to lift up the roof, and not being able to be removed or stopped by shamans and wizards. She is outside of society literally because the Bell Family lived on large, rural grounds near a very small town. Another concept that we have discussed in class is the relation to possible sin because there is a discussion of race relations and that the Bell Witch was possibly a curse given to the family by a cruel slave master that was fired by John Bell or the Bells were terrible to slaves so a slave set a curse on
Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft is a concise, 231 page informational text by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. Published in 1974, it explores the economic and social conditions present in the Salem village during the 1600s that led to the hysteria surrounding witchcraft. Multiple graphs and illustrations are present, as well as an average sized font, an abundance of footnotes typically on the left page, and a prominent voice from the authors. The book was written to serve as a more comprehensive informational piece on the Salem witch trials due to the authors finding other pieces written about the same topic to be inaccurate. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum wanted to create something that utilized
Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft explores and breaks down the events that took place in the small village of Salem in 1692. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, authors of Salem Possessed, use primary sources, both published and unpublished, to tell the crazy and eventful history of Salem. They go into great detail in why some folks were accused of being Witches, the arrests and the so popular Salem Witch Trials. The main reason for this book was to try and find out what caused the terrible outbreak of events that happened in Salem and they do so by looking into the History and Social life in the famed Salem Village. The history of Witchcraft in Salem is a well-known story from High School on and this book goes in depth about why things happened the way they did and how the social aspect played a big role is the story.
The bewitchment at Salem Village started in the winter of 1691-1692, where three bored little girls was curiously searching for their future husbands by taking the white of an egg and putting it into a glass of water. They did this in hopes to see their visions. The daughter of the reverend Parris in the village was one of the little girls, and soon after the session, Betty Parris started experiencing knif...
The first time I heard this story was in Maryland. It was told by a woman in her thirties, who identified herself as being of Irish heritage, which made the story of Moll Dyer more close to her heart. She was also an anthropology major who has had contact with local folklorists in the past. This is where she first learned of the story of Moll Dyer, which she recounted to me as follows:
The Bell Witch is the most common name for a well-known haunting that occurred in Red River, Tennessee, which is now known as Adams. The Witch is also known as “Old Kate” or “Kate Batts’s ghost” due to the belief that the Bell family was targeted after Batts laid a curse upon his family. She is described as a woman that “possessed no greater height than most average women but certainly greater girth. The flesh of her upper arms were as thick as a young man’s thighs. She also possessed enormous quantities of bright red hair and freckles.” Batts was a hardworking person that took on the many responsibilities of her family farm after her husband was involved in an accident which crushed his legs. It was believed by a small group in the
In February 1692, the girls who were attacked by specters named three witches: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne were rude and unpopular in the village, so it was easy to say that they are witches. Tituba was a maid from the Caribbean. Because there were rasistism then, she was considered a witch because of her race. When Sarah Good was on court, she claimed innocent, but no one believed her. The girls who were attacked by specters screamed in pain, ...
In today’s times, witches are the green complexed, big nosed ladies who ride around on broomsticks at Halloween. Back in the 1600’s, witches looked like average people, but they worked alongside the devil. Salem, Massachusetts, was a religious town of Puritans. They were strong believers in God, and had believed that witches were the devils workers. Everything was usual in Salem in 1692, until, 9-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigale Williams had sudden outbursts of screaming, contortions and convulsions, the doctor came and diagnosed witchcraft (Blumberg, Jess) And from this time on, the people of Salem believed there were witches all around them.
The Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 were the largest outbreak of witch hunting in colonial New England up to that time. Although it was the largest outbreak, it was not something that was new. Witch-hunting had been a part of colonial New England since the formation of the colonies. Between the years 1648 to 1663, approximately 15 witches were executed. During the winter of 1692 to February of 1693, approximately 150 citizens were accused of being witches and about 25 of those died, either by hanging or while in custody. There is no one clear-cut answer to explain why this plague of accusations happened but rather several that must be examined and tied together. First, at the same time the trials took place, King William's War was raging in present day Maine between the colonists and the Wabanaki Indians with the help of the French. Within this war, many brutal massacres took place on both sides, leaving orphaned children due to the war that had endured very traumatic experiences. Second, many of the witch accusations were based on spectral evidence, most of which were encounters of the accused appearing before the victim and "hurting" them. There were rampant "visions" among the colonies' citizens, which can only be explained as hallucinations due to psychological or medical conditions by virtue of disease, or poisoning.
In the early winter months of 1692, in colonial Massachusetts, two young girls began exhibiting strange symptoms that were described to be "beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease to effect (examiner.com)." Doctors looked them over, but could not come up with any sort of logical explanation for their ailments. Therefore, the girls were accused of taking part in witchcraft. Soon, other young women in the village started showing similar symptoms. This "illness" of sort slowly made its way through the village to many of the residents. Soon, people started coming up with possible theories as to what started all the madness.
One night Ann saw the shape of a coffin from the egg trick, that's where it all started. Soon after that happened Ann Putman, Abigail Williams, and Betty Parris started acting weirdly. They started babbling, convulsing, or simply staring blankly. Once they were identified as victims of witchcraft they were asked to point out their tormentors. Ann pointed to Sarah Good and Sarah Osbourne. She also testified against Tibuta and said that the woman had tortured her grievously by pricking and pinching her dreadfully."(Yanak, T.,and Pam Cornelison, ...
During the early winter of 1692 two young girls became inexplicably ill and started having fits of convulsion, screaming, and hallucinations. Unable to find any medical reason for their condition the village doctor declared that there must be supernatural forces of witchcraft at work. This began an outbreak of hysteria that would result in the arrest of over one hundred-fifty people and execution of twenty women and men. The madness continued for over four months.
The Salem Witch Trials occurred from 1692 to 1693. When two girls, aged 9 and 11, started having strange and peculiar fits, the Puritans believed that the cause of these actions was the work of the devil. The children accused three women of afflicting them: Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. Tituba was a Caribbean slave owned by the Parris family. Sarah Good was a homeless woman. Sarah Osborne was a poor elderly woman. Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good pleaded innocent. Tituba admitted, “The Devil came to me and bid me serve him.” She described seeing red cats, yellow birds, black dogs, and a black man who asked her to sign his “book”. She confessed to signing the book. All three wo...
In order to understand the outbreak of the witchcraft hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, authors of Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, explore the social and economic divisions and tensions within Salem and the surrounding communities. Both Boyer and Nissenbaum have a strong background in history. Paul Boyer (1935-2012) was the Merle Curti Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as well as a cultural and intellectual historian who authored several other books. Stephen Nissenbaum was a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst who authored several other books as well. In Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of
In the book Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, Rosalyn Schanzer describes what happens all because two girls fell ill. When Betty and Abigail started having fits, a doctor diagnosed them as bewitched. Almost immediately they accused the first witch, their slave Tituba. From there all the accusations started pouring out, Ann Putnam Jr., a friend of Betty and Abigail, became “afflicted” as well as multiple others, and soon the jails were overflowing. The first “witch” was hanged on June 10, and the last “witches/wizards” were hanged on September 22. The most likely reasons for the accusations were a thirst for revenge, boredom, and peer/parental pressure.
What do you think when someone calls someone a witch? What comes to mind? Do you think of the movie, ‘Hocus Pocus’ or do you think of the black pointed hats and the long black, slit ended dresses? What about witchcraft? Does the term “Devil worshiper” ever cross your mind? Do you think of potions and spells? For many, many generations, we have underestimated what the true meaning of a witch and what witchcraft really is. What is the history that hides behind it? Witches and witchcraft have been in our history since the ancient times. There is a little bit more than the ghost stories told on Halloween, the movies shown on TV and dressing up on Halloween.